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Monthly Archives: 六月 2015

I have heard it said before that having a baby changes everything. I knew this was true when I found myself incredibly grateful to be able to sleep in until 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Pre-parent me would have died a little inside if someone had told her that there would come a day when she would view a 7 a.m. wake-up call or an unaccompanied trip to Target as major things to look forward to, but three years of parenthood does strange, awful things to our psyches.

Much like war.

We even start to miss some of the household chores we did before we spawned, surely a sign that we’re more foregone than we thought. Right now, if given the choice between mopping my kitchen floor without my three-year-old’s “help” and going to the spa, I’d choose the mop. I don’t even know who I am anymore.

The train jerked to a stop, and you watched sleepily as the carriage emptied. Your watch indicated that it was only 4:30am and a full hour before your train was due to reach its destination, but the cleaners had boarded and begun mopping down the floors.

“Nong Khai?” You ask one of them.

The lady nodded. You hop out onto the platform and straight into the arms of the tuk-tuk drivers.

“Thai-Lao Friendship bridge, ka.”

“Euh?”

“Laos? Immigration?”

The driver shared a nonplussed look with his colleagues, which should have tipped you off to your grave error had you not already been in transit a full 30 hours and suffering from severe sleep deprivation.

“Laos, okay.” He says, with the look of a man who has no idea what he is doing but has decided to figure it out as he goes.

To me, and this is according to my perception, street food is affordable food on the go which can be consumed as one drives, according to what we’re shamelessly proud of, walk down the street to the next job or meeting, or share with friends late at night or after midnight on the way back from the wild lavish Lebanese parties with the gorgeous girls we’re well-known for.

So, it seems the UK’s favourite season is officially upon us, and to mark the beginning of what will hopefully be a long, hot, fun-filled summer, The Grumpy Chef and I will soon be cooking up some tasty picnic snacks, so keep your eyes peeled for some healthy, easy-to-prepare summer grub coming soon.

I’m also delighted to announce that I’ll be hosting this month’s Our Growing Edge — an online foodie link up event created by the wonderful Genie at Bunny Eats Design. Aiming to connect and inspire food bloggers around the globe, Our Growing Edge gives a monthly snapshot of what foodies have been getting up to and provides an opportunity for those involved to share with the online community some new and exciting experiences and recipes.

If you’d like to create some delicious picnic food to share on Our Growing Edge, all you have to do is get cooking and writing. The only requirement is that you write a post about a…

I’ve been turning a thought over and over in my hands for the past several weeks, holding it up against the light when my arms can bear the weight. Just thinking—navel-gazing, really, and a little mopily. About the writing I do about books, for books—here, in this space, and elsewhere online, and (to a lesser extent) what appears of me in traditional print. It’s an exhaustion-borne thought, I know this—but I don’t know how it got to this point, that it can actually calcify into a whole thought, or when it started brewing. It’s a declaration, one that’s (upsettingly) more assured than most of the sentences that’s sprung whole in my mind: I want to stop writing about books, because I want to stop trying to justify myself.

I am all too aware that a certain gravity has been pushed upon many things of late—why, I can only imagine; by…

Tato Torres, Monxo López and the charter members of the Loisaida Center’s Plenatorium Project came to the WBAI studios in swingin’ Boerum Hill Brooklyn to play us a few songs about life and the labors of love. Using a new configuration that included accordion and guitar, the pleneros filled the studio with a wall of sound that spoke the language of circular migration. Torres has been on the scene for many years now as one of the founders of the seminal Yerbabuena, and the Center has been holding a weekly workshop influence by the style developed in the western Puerto Rican city Mayaguez. I invited them as part of the lead-up to Sunday’s annual National Puerto Rican Day Parade down Fifth Avenue in New York. After a couple of tunes you might be able to feel the room levitating.

Hey. It’s One & Done Sunday. One picture, and five links that are worth your time.

Friday night, only #4 and I were home for dinner. I still cooked for an army, because everyone shows up eventually– plus#4 is our only kid who eats, and she ate about half of what I made anyway (not coincidentally, she’s the only one who is strong and tall). After dinner, I took the puggles for a walk and when I came back, something was wrong. I couldn’t immediately put my finger on it, but I knew something was off, and it wasn’t just that the house was nearly empty and nobody was screaming.

My sense of unease had me on guard, checking around corners and under the furniture until I came to the kitchen.